A federal judge awarded $1.5 million to an Atlanta trans woman who spent six months in jail after being detained on false drug accusations in October 2015.
A transgender lady named Ju’Zema Goldring was walking by herself when she was mistakenly detained by two Atlanta police officers.
In her handbag, the officers discovered a stress ball that contained an unidentified chemical. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation arrested her for cocaine trafficking even though a narcotics test revealed no signs of unlawful drug use.
After spending six months in a male prison, Goldring was released on bail, according to her attorney Jeff Filipovits.
During an independent test, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation was unable to find any cocaine. The test came back negative, but Filipovits charged the woman nevertheless.
“Everyone on the jury saw that the test was negative,” he said. The discovery of this should not have required seven years and a federal jury trial. The idea of what other wrongdoings the City of Atlanta has condoned while escaping our notice is horrifying. Evidently, our client was profiled, just like so many others.
Goldring revealed to WSB that she was housed in a prison for men. In 2019, Filipovits sued the city in a federal civil rights case. Attorneys for Goldring alleged that the accused officer had broken the 2014 Transgender Interaction Policy of the Atlanta Police Department.
The two “injustices” in Goldring’s case were also mentioned by the judge.
One reason is that any arrest, even for a little infraction like jaywalking, can substantially disrupt a person’s life, making it more difficult for them to get employment, among other things, he said. In addition, it is debatable whether the time it takes an officer to make an arrest for jaywalking would be better used on other urgent tasks, such combating violent crimes, which seem to be on the rise lately, or interacting with the community.
“Consider an officer who is at the end of his shift and has not yet hit that day’s points target; rather than writing a citation for someone speeding on the highway (or jaywalking across the street), it would seem the officer might be tempted to instead arrest that person for just a couple extra points,” the judge said.
